We recently posted a press release to the ISS website regarding a new mobile-storage contender entering the Phoenix market: 1-800-PACK-RAT. The company plans to open at least four facilities in Arizona in the next few years; and based on my observations, it isn't messing around. While out doing some pre-Halloween scavenging with my husband this past weekend, we drove by this nifty marketing approach:

What a fantastic way to solicit new business! This is just how scientists would conduct experiments with their own lab rats (no pun intended): introduce the foreign object into the subject's environment. Allow it to react, interact and pro-act at its own pace. Observe how it behaves. 1-800-PACK-RAT has dropped its boxes into sample markets, allowing potential customers to investigate them at their own convenience and as their curiosity inspires. Smart.

That's not to say competing companies haven't tried similar tactics, but I've never encountered them. I was impressed to see this right up in my face not two weeks after having been introduced to the new player. At the very least, the company's marketing team is on the ball.

Of course, I also had to check out the website, www.1800packrat.com, which is very nicely put together: clean and easy to navigate. They could probably do away with the shirtless, backward-cap-wearing frat boy touting their slogan at the top of the home page ... I'm not sure where they were going with that or to whom they thought it would appeal. The slogan is simple: "So easy, you'll want to put everything in storage." But it might as well say, "We cater to the apathetic and indolent." It kind of surprised me coming from this otherwise enterprising company. (OK, so some of my personal biases are rearing their ugly heads here. But let's face it: The image is intended to invoke the power of a stereotype, is it not?)

At any rate, the Pack Rats are invading the nation. Look for them in a market near you!